How to use email forwarding to create an email address with your domain name

You don’t need a hosting plan to have a custom email address using your own domain name. If you’ve registered a domain, you can create an email address by using name.com’s free email forwarding service.* Here’s how:

*Note that this is a forwarding service, and not a new email inbox. Replies will come from the email address you forwarded your email to, rather than the address you created with your domain.

I’m going to set up an email address using ethanconley.com. I’m not using this domain for a website at the moment, and there’s no hosting plan associated with it, but I can still use the domain to create an email address.

To get started, I’ll click on the domain name to move on to the settings for the selected domain.

2. Click on “Email Services”

The “Email Services” link is the last item in the menu located on the left side of the domain settings page.

3. Enable email services

Once you arrive at the email services page, click the “Enable Email Services for [yourdomain]” link.

4. Create your email address and choose a forwarding address

Once you enable email services, you’ll be taken to a form where you can create the email address for your domain name.

The field on the left is the email address you’re creating for your domain. In this case, I’m creating ethan@ethanconley.com.

The field on the right is for an existing address where you’ll receive the messages sent to your new address. So I’m creating ethan@ethanconley.com, and all mail sent to that address will arrive in an existing inbox (e.g. your Gmail or Outlook inbox).

After you’ve chosen your new address and entered the forwarding address, just click the Submit button.

That’s it!

You now have a custom email address to go with your domain name, and it didn’t cost a dime. It can take up to 24 hours for email service changes to take effect, but it only took about one hour for me.

If you ever want to change or disable your email forwarding, simply return to the email services settings for your domain name.

For information on how to set up hosted email accounts at name.com, click here.